1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus for processing input image data, and a control method and program thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Along with a recent growing interest in environmental issues, movement toward paperless offices is rapidly progressing. For this purpose, a document management system is formed, which causes a scanner to read paper documents accumulated and stored in, for example, binders, converts the read images into a portable document format (to be abbreviated as “PDF” hereinafter), and accumulates and stores them in an image storage device (database).
There is also known a system which recognizes character information contained in image data obtained by reading a document and associating the information with font data (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-12402). This facilitates reuse/reediting of paper documents.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-12402, character information contained in image data obtained by reading is associated with font data. For this reason, the information is not completely faithful to the character information described in the document. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-157448 describes a method of solving this problem. That is, character information contained in image data is converted into outline data by using vector data. The outline vector is managed in association with the character type of the character information.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-157448 also describes a method of converting outline data formed from character information by using vector data into a format processible by predetermined document creation application software.
Thus generated electronic data has character information faithful to the original input document image. It is also possible to scale the data by using the vector data and output it.
As a known technique, information called hint information is added to a font with a predetermined format. When characters are made very small by reducing the character size to a predetermined size or less, the hint information allows correction of character information and reduction of the line width of the characters to prevent damage to the readability due to overlapping of character lines (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-95647).
However, the method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-157448 does not handle character information as a font. Instead, character information is handled as vector data so the hint information of a font is not used. For this reason, if created electronic data is output after reducing the character portion to a very small size in, for example, reduction layout printing such as 6-in-1 or 8-in-1, stroke connection may occur in the character portion, and the readability may be poor.